October 9th, 2008 · 1 Comment

On the home front
Yeah, we’ve arrived at the section filled with things you’ve heard before. Fight the urge to skip this part! It can make the most difference in your bills!

• Thermostat: Do you have electric heating? A/C? Altering your thermostat setting by one degree – one degree – can save you $15 to $40 a season. Even better, says the EPA’s Durrett, is to buy and use a programmable thermostat that has a default setting of about 70 in the winter and about 62 when you’re away from home or asleep. Proper use of these thermostats – or even a routine of constantly setting your manual thermostat down 6 to 8 degrees when away – can save the average family $180 a year.

• Hot water heaters: Set your water heater to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, if your dishwasher allows it, and you’ll save 7-11 percent of your water heating costs.

• Light bulbs: You’ve looked at those weird-looking swirly light bulbs in the store, but they do cost more than a traditional light bulb, so you’ve put off replacing them all in your house. That’s OK. Do it one at a time, but do it. The EPA estimates that nearly 20 percent of our home’s electricity use goes to lighting. The compact fluorescent bulbs, which cost about $20 for 6 on Amazon, use less power, are estimated to last 10 times longer, and will save you an estimated $25-$45 over the cost of its lifetime in electricity costs, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Consumer’s Guide to Energy Efficiency. Instead of only focusing on the immediate price of regular incandescent bulbs at the store, think about how soon you’ll have to replace them – again. And visualize your most recent electric bill and how cool it will be to help bring the total down. Last week was the EPA’s 4th annual Change A Light, Change the World day, where individuals and families pledge to change out light bulbs and light fixtures for those that are more environmentally friendly.

• The windows. Depending on the time of year and the direction your windows face, you probably have a beloved – or troublesome – source of constant solar energy. If you have south- or west-facing windows, harvest that warmth in the winter and buy insulating window coverings for the summertime. If you’ve got north- and east- facing windows, enjoy the morning sun and block out the evening chill. Something as seemingly intuitive as this can make a difference in how hard your heater or air conditioner works. While you’re at it, be sure to flip the switch on your ceiling fan that makes it push air toward the floor in the summer and toward the ceiling in the winter. Heat rises, and this will circulate it.

• Make the government’s Energy Star program your friend. A joint program between the EPA and the Department of Energy, the people behind this effort evaluate and label products that let you know you’re getting the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly product on the market. We’ve all seen the stickers on such large appliances as refrigerators or washers and dryers, but they rate small items like light bulbs and battery chargers as well. Their website, www.energystar.gov, includes an interactive house where clicking on different rooms or products shows you what you can save.

Whatever you do, don’t expect every new habit to stick, or to catch on quickly.

“It can be hard in the beginning to remember the small things that you’ve changed about your lifestyle,” Ingram said. “For us the biggest challenge was when we decided to start composting and we had to remember to put our food scraps in the compost and not the trash. I think it took a good year for my 11-year-old to remember to throw her apple cores into the compost. I could have gotten mad that she kept forgetting but we were all adjusting to our new lean, green lifestyle.”

The payoff should be worthwhile. Ingram’s family has a multi-faceted approach to reducing, reusing and recycling, and their bills show it.

“I can tell you, without a doubt, that we’ve cut our electricity bill by hundreds of dollars a year. Instead of 12 months of $500+ electricity bills, now we will have an expensive month in July and August only, when we run our pool filter and have the central air conditioning going. The rest of year, our electricity bills are in the $180 range. Using that $500 number, I could say that we used to spend $6,000 a year on electricity. Now we’re spending about $3,000, so yeah, we cut that in half.”

• One more tip: Reward yourself. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Relax tonight with a cold drink and some popcorn. Oh, and pop it the old-fashioned way, OK? Microwave popcorn is convenient, but it costs $4.30 a box for a total of 21 ounces. A bag of un-popped popcorn is closer to costing $1.60-$2 and you get 32 ounces. (Even the organic popcorn sold through Local Harvest, and pictured here, is more economical than the microwave bags.) A little oil, a pan on the stove and a tight-fitting lid is all you need; if you pop one or two fewer microwave bags a week than you do now, you’ll easily pocket another $40 over the course of a year. There are also places online that show you how to make your own microwave popcorn in brown lunch bags, where one pound of popcorn will make 50 servings. And as a bonus for your DIY efforts, you won’t have to be concerned all those added ingredients in the microwave products.

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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